I love animals. I also love food. For most of my life, these two loves have occupied their own separate spheres in my heart. Occasionally, discord would arise: my love for animals would make me rethink my love for certain foods, and I'd resume my on-again, off-again pescatarian eating habits. But my appetite and my conscience didn't really have any serious conflicts until a couple of months ago. It was high time to get Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals off its stagnant spot on my Goodreads "currently reading" list, so I prepared myself for some somber bedtime reading and dove in.

The animal rights world has a reputation for being militant and, occasionally, outrageous. This book is not. Foer starts off as a skeptical omnivore, and his agenda is simply to sort out his own lingering qualms about eating animals. He questions customs that humankind has upheld for millennia, such as loving certain animals (dogs) while eating other, likely more intelligent ones (pigs). He also discusses how, throughout human history, our "eat with care" mentality has devolved into the horrors of factory farming. Foer's graphic descriptions of the cruelty that occurs in factory farm slaughterhouses are difficult to read. But he is genuinely interested in exploring all sides of the issue, and so he interviews a variety of individuals: a factory farmer, an independent heritage turkey farmer, a vegetarian rancher, a PETA activist, a vegan who builds "humane" slaughterhouses.

No matter what your moral philosophy is on eating animals, it's hard to argue with the environmental repercussions of our increasing demands for cheap meat. There's a reason why many environmentalists are vegan, and many vegans are environmentalists. Animal excrement from factory farming is one of the world's largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions and water pollution. Foer describes a series of "fish kills" (defined as "incidents where the entire fish population in a given area is killed at once") over a recent three-year period. He writes: "In these documented kills alone, thirteen million fish were literally poisoned by shit -- if set head to tail fin, these victims would stretch the length of the entire Pacific coast from Seattle to the Mexican border." Holy crap. Given that the health of our oceans is a barometer of the health of our planet, the impact of factory farming on aquatic ecosystems is alarming. Foer reflects, "Just how destructive does a culinary preference have to be before we decide to eat something else?"

Sometimes, breaking down how we talk about something breaks down how we think about something. Using this postmodern idea, Foer challenges one common response to going veggie: you're being overly sentimental.

Two friends are ordering lunch. One says, “I’m in the mood for a burger,” and orders it. The other says, “I’m in the mood for a burger,” but remembers that there are things more important to him than what he is in the mood for at any given moment, and orders something else. Who is the sentimentalist?

In the end, Foer concludes he cannot consume animals in good conscience. He advocates for a vegetarian diet, though part of him still seems to entertain the idea that animals can be raised and killed humanely on family farms. My own conclusions led me to adopt a vegan diet about two months ago. The reasoned arguments for abstaining from meat, such as those presented in Eating Animals and the documentary Cowspiracy, were at least as important in my decision as my emotional response to animal suffering. It feels good when reason and emotion are aligned. Changing my eating habits seems like a tiny act of resistance against a pervasive and powerful system, but also a choice that reaffirms my values three times a day. And in the current political climate, we can't give up on the idea that small, individual actions can add up to big changes.

My learning process is still ongoing. I'd love to know your thoughts on these issues, even if they're different from my own. Have you read Eating Animals, or any other books on food ethics? Should we eat animals?

There's a good chance you've read The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. And if so, there's a good chance you have some strong opinions on it. If I had to lead a book club discussion on this novel, I'd ask two questions. First, is this book on your "best books ever" list, as it is for so many people? And second, should it be classified as young adult fiction?

In The Book Thief, Zusak approaches the Holocaust era from a unique angle, focusing on a civilian population in Nazi Germany. The novel's heroine is a young girl named Liesel Meminger, who is adopted and raised by a poor foster family in a fictional town outside of Munich. With the encouragement of her foster father Hans Hubermann, Liesel discovers a passion for reading and with that, a knack for stealing books from Nazi book burnings and the mayor's library. Liesel soon participates in a much bigger act of resistance when the Hubermanns agree to shelter Max Vanderburg, a young Jewish man, in their basement.

The episodic narrative contains many scenes that are beautifully imagined and told. From the beginning, Zusak fleshes out an entire village of interesting characters that drew me into the story. Also, it's hard for a book-lover not to appreciate the novel's emphasis on the power of words and stories in times of hardship. In one memorable scene, Max uses white paint to erase the pages of Mein Kampf, creating a blank book to write his own stories from his basement sanctuary. Fighting back against words of hate, Max constructs a narrative that reframes his story of persecution as one of love and friendship.

The major element of The Book Thief that didn't work for me was its narrative style. The novel's narrator is Death, who is personified not as a scythe-wielding Grim Reaper but as a deadpan yet sympathetic observer who carries away the souls of the deceased. Death's commentary felt like a constant intrusion upon an otherwise good story. Death frequently interrupts the narrative with newsflash-style interjections (see above). I assume these were intended for dramatic effect, or sometimes comic relief, but I didn't find they contributed anything to the story. Death's use of foreshadowing was also heavy-handed; he's constantly hinting about what's going to happen and who's going to die. Even when he's just telling the story without gimmicky devices, his descriptions were sometimes contrived or awkward. For example: "Pinecones were scattered like cookies"... why cookies?

In the US, The Book Thief is marketed as a young adult book, though I've heard that Zusak didn't write it with this genre label in mind. Most of the awards it has received are specific to the genres of young adult and children's literature. It's hard to say this without implying that young adult fiction is less well-written than adult fiction (which I don't necessarily think is true), but to me, the narrative style seems more suited to a younger audience. Although I wouldn't include The Book Thief on my "best books ever" list, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to younger readers who are just beginning to grapple with the extreme cruelty and courage that took place during this period in history.

If you've read The Book Thief, what did you think about it? Would you consider it a young adult book?

Happy New Year! Here's to the start of the next chapter and whatever it may bring. This new year more than ever, I'm appreciating the "fresh start" feeling that we associate with January, and embracing the symbolic moment to reset, reflect, and figure out how to carry on from here. I've even made formal new year's resolutions, which I haven't done in a very long time!

One goal I worked on last year, but didn't fully accomplish, was to start blogging again. I made a lot of changes to this space, but then 2016 took some unexpected twists and turns, and I dropped the ball... again. For 2017, I've set three blog-related goals. Firstly, I want to read 50 books this year and share my thoughts on each one. Secondly, I want to prioritize consistency over perfection in this creative outlet. My perfectionist tendencies too often lead to a nothing-is-good-enough mentality that leaves me frustrated and defeats the purpose of writing what's genuinely on my mind, even if some ideas are still half-baked. Thirdly, I want to use this space to connect: with other people, perspectives, experiences, and ideas, and with my own interests and passions.

Let's make good things happen in 2017! Also, the photo above is Eva loving life after a recent snowfall in the Pacific Northwest. I hope you find something that brings you that level of joy this year.

The month of Halloween is a perfect time to indulge in some literary chills and thrills. The best scary stories do more than just shock and disgust; they inspire fear through the atmosphere they create, the what-ifs they pose, or the twisted psychological dynamics at play. With these criteria in mind, I've compiled a short list of scary books on my radar. The first three are ones I've read and highly recommend, and the others I've added to my ever-expanding reading list.

This murder mystery is set during Medieval times in an Italian monastery, where two visiting monks are investigating a strange series of gruesome deaths. As part of their search, they sneak into the labyrinthine secret passageways of an old library and must crack a series of textual puzzles to solve the crime. The book is heavy on theology and philosophy, which is at times dense (I resorted to Wikipedia), but if you're willing to take on the challenge, you'll find yourself immersed in the world of the monastery and the investigations that unfold.

Truth is sometimes stranger, and scarier, than fiction. Ronson proves this point in his journalistic investigation into the world of psychopaths. As he profiles psychopaths and the researchers who study them, the true stories he tells are terrifying (and occasionally, hilarious). I reviewed this book here.

A duo of Irish detectives, Rob Ryan and Cassie Maddox, investigate the death of a young girl found in the woods near an archaeological site. As details emerge, Ryan notices striking parallels between this case and a traumatic incident from his childhood. You may find the end emotionally distressing, but not because of the crime itself. This is the first book in the Dublin Squad series, so if you like it, there's more where it came from.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, this book is actually a work of creative nonfiction about the crimes, trial, and eventual execution of murderer Gary Gilmore. The 1,000-page magnum opus explores many of the people closest to Gilmore, including his ex-girlfriend and "true love" Nicole Baker. Gilmore is famous for refusing to appeal his death sentence and vocalizing his desire to be executed. Check out Joan Didion's review here.

This tome is a cult favorite, and I'm so excited to read it that I already went out and bought a copy. Some readers say this is one of the most unsettling books they've ever read. The plot is apparently difficult to summarize, but I've gleaned that it's about a house that's bigger on the inside than it appears to be from the outside. It's considered both a work of horror and a love story. It is also an "ergodic" work, meaning that the reader has to work to construct meaning by putting together various fragments and storylines.

The novel begins when the Detroit police discover a gruesome body hidden in a tunnel. As lead detective Gabriella Versado becomes entrenched in the case, she fails to notice that her daughter, high school student Layla, has engaged in a risky online flirtation with a pedophile. The glowing NPR review of this book is what makes me want to read it.

Millhauser is a Pulitzer and Story Prize winner, and in this collection of short stories, he weaves together myths and fairy tales with small town characters caught in unsettling situations. For instance, the premise of one story, based on the myth of Narcissus, is that a man becomes obsessed with a special mirror polish that reveals a superior reflection of himself when applied to any mirror.

Again, I try to avoid books that derive their horror from shock and disgust. Reviews assure me that Geek Love doesn't just do that, but out of all the books on the list, it sounds like possibly the most shocking and disgusting of them all. It's about a family-run traveling carnival that is struggling to make a living when the parents devise a terrible idea: they will turn their family into a freak show by altering their children's genes. What ensues is sibling rivalry and the creation of a particularly disturbing cult.

The Blackwood sisters and their uncle are the sole survivors of a mysterious poisoning that left the rest of their family dead. The village suspects Constance, the older sister who cooked for the family on the night they died. The novel begins:

“My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all, I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in our family is dead.”

A film adaptation of this novel is coming to theaters next year, so now's the time to read it!

Please share your scary book recommendations! Recommendations for scary movies, podcasts, etc. are also very welcome.

The days are getting shorter, the nights are getting longer, and the time is nigh for page-turners that will keep us from going into premature hibernation. Missing, Presumed by Sadie Steiner is one I recommend for those of you who like a dose of literary character development with your fictional tales of mystery, murder, and mayhem.

At the start of the novel, Detective Manon Bradshaw of the Cambridgeshire police is lamenting her latest disastrous date when she receives an alert about a missing female. Edith Hind, a beautiful postgraduate student and the beloved daughter of the Royal Family's surgeon, has disappeared from her home, leaving behind her phone, keys, shoes, and coat. A broken wineglass and a trail of blood suggest that Edith was taken against her will, and that the crucial window of time to save her is closing. As the police interview Edith's family, boyfriend, and closest cohorts, secrets emerge about her complicated love life, which the tabloids quickly proliferate with little respect for anyone's privacy. When the body of a young man is found in a nearby river, connections to Edith's disappearance seem tentative but impossible to ignore.

The dogged single female detective, or dogged single female protagonist who becomes deeply invested in solving a crime, has become a popular character type in fictional mysteries (see TV series like Prime Suspect, The Fall, or Marcella). Manon occupies this role somewhat unwillingly. While she presents herself as brazenly independent, she at times feels painfully lonely; she is cynical but persistent in her attempts to find companionship. As Manon navigates two unpredictable worlds, one of crime and the other of online dating, she exposes the gulf between how we present ourselves and how we actually feel. This split between interior and exterior distresses Edith's best friend, who faces the scrutiny of the public eye into her personal affairs. It is also the reality of Miriam, Edith's mother, as her experience of grief and hopelessness isolates her from her husband and friends. When certain characters fail to reveal their interior motivations, we feel Manon's frustration.

We are not how we appear. Mysteries play upon this truth to a somewhat extreme degree. All of us are selective in how we present ourselves to others; our lives are messier than the facades we construct. In Missing, Presumed, and especially for the novel's female characters, this public/private division is both a burden and, at times, a necessity that should be honored. In a genre in which the ultimate goal is to know everything, the interior lives of others will always be, to some extent, unknowable.

Hello and welcome to my updated internet corner! I've been dreaming up this new blog for quite some time, and it's exciting and liberating to take the plunge and share it with you! Bookish Types is a blog mostly about books, one of my chief obsessions in life. The impetus to create it is basically summed up in the words of the author J. G. Ballard: "Be faithful to your obsessions." Also relevant: the popular wisdom treat yo'self, which I seem to tell myself every time I enter a bookstore.

Reading and journaling have always gone hand in hand for me. I find that I think more deeply about what I'm reading when I take the time to write about it. Thus, my motivation to share my reflections on what I'm reading is somewhat self-indulgent. But a blog is something shared with others, and just as I find value in creating this space, I hope that others find value in reading it. Books have their most profound impact when we are willing to be vulnerable as readers -- to experience our deepest emotions and see ourselves more honestly. The private experience of reading invites such vulnerability; a public space, like a blog, often does not. I hope to use books as a means of talking about life, especially life's vulnerable moments. And eventually, I hope to use books as a means of connecting to others, and to explore the unique ways in which books shape our lives.

I will be keeping two ongoing lists on this blog: my current reading list, and an archive of the books I've written about. Please bear with me as I continue to make lingering fixes to the new website. Finally, I understand that some of you who subscribed to this blog in its previous form won't be as interested in its reincarnation. That's okay. You can subscribe or unsubscribe here. Happy reading!

Oh, hello. As you may have noticed, it's been a while since my last post! During this time, I’ve been hard at work on Operation Find My Path In Life, which has involved acknowledging that a) I've failed to fulfil my childhood dream of becoming an egyptologist à la Rachel Weisz in The Mummy, and b) my childhood backup plan, becoming a teacher, turned out to be my true calling. I have also realized that, as an introvert in an overwhelmingly extroverted field, I am in need of a quiet, creative outlet after work. So here I am, back in my internet corner.

That said, I'm making some big changes to this space. In many ways, I've outgrown this blog in its current form, which I started in my late adolescence with no clear purpose in mind. The blog I once wrote wasn't the sort of blog I wanted to keep writing, but whenever I tried to change directions, I kept getting held back by a sense of obligation to the past. After a long break from this space, now feels like the right time to take the plunge and turn this blog into something new.

If you look through my recent posts (which are, admittedly, not that recent), you'll notice a shift in focus towards a topic I love to write about: books. For a long time now, I've wanted to create a space to record and share my thoughts about what I'm reading. I've decided to turn this blog into just that: a blog (mostly) about books and my personal reflections on them. I'm hesitant to call it a "book blog," because that phrase makes me think of a blog purely dedicated to book reviews, which isn't exactly my intention. But more on the details soon. Next week, you will see that this space has a new name and design, and I will tell you more about what to expect!

I realize that not everyone who once read here will be interested in my new blog, and that's okay. In fact, part of me is wondering right now, is anyone even still here to read this message? But if you make your way back to this space and stick around for the changes, I really look forward to reconnecting with you. Here's to the conclusion of one chapter... and the start of a new one!

Last year, I began a minimalist wardrobe project, with the goal of buying fewer items of clothing over the months and years to come. In the process, I found myself evaluating my clothes more meticulously, shopping for styles and fabrics with longevity and versatility. But there was one factor I didn't really consider: where do my clothes come from?

Thanks to a reader's recommendation, I recently watched The True Cost, a documentary about "fast fashion" and its drastic ethical and environmental implications. Clothing production has increased by 400% in the last decade, largely due to the growth of fast-fashion sellers like H&M, Zara, Topshop and other retail giants offering an ever-changing selection of cheap, trendy clothes. The film takes us to sweatshops in Dhaka, Bangladesh, the site of the Rana Plaza collapse that killed over 1,000 garment-industry workers. One female worker, who began her job with a monthly salary of $10, reveals that after she attempted to organize a union to advocate for safe and equitable working conditions, she and other employees were locked up in the factory and beaten. In a particularly emotional scene, she states, "I believe these clothes are produced by our blood."

The documentary also examines the frightening toll of fast fashion on the planet. The fashion industry is the second most polluting industry after oil. The toxic chemicals used to produce fabrics have caused a surge of health issues and birth defects. Donating our clothing, which often eases our consciences, is not a viable solution; the film reports that the majority of donated clothing ends up in landfills or is shipped out to developing countries, destroying their local garment businesses.

One of the main reasons I took a huge step back from blogging and social media is that my blog was promoting a form of consumerism that I had come to question. The affiliate program I joined, from which I have since unaffiliated myself, is a huge advertising engine for fast fashion, perpetuating "haul culture" and incentivizing members to "create a sense of urgency" (their words, not mine) in marketing items to readers. I enjoy fashion. However, it's a little perverse that people are being paid handsomely to say "I bought this shirt!" while the people who made the shirt aren't paid enough to live with dignity. When I decided to live with less stuff, I realized that social media was constantly bombarding me with messages to buy more.

No love of clothing should override one's regard for human welfare or the environment. The True Cost offers few solutions to the issues it exposes, and from a little research, I understand that the solutions are far more complicated than simply replacing one kind of consumerism with another. We need to consume less, and policies need to change. We can't ignore the argument that sweatshops lift people out of extreme poverty, even if we question its soundness. But we are all consumers, and it's undeniable that the small decisions of many people -- shopping 10% less, demanding transparency, finding ethical and sustainable alternatives to fast-fashion fabrics and practices -- can make a positive difference.

As I research more into these issues, I also hope to reconcile my love of fashion with my responsibility to reduce my own consumption. I highly recommend the documentary; its message is easy to ignore but, for me, impossible to forget.

In a hilarious interview, the late Maurice Sendak describes his work as a children's book author: "I don't write for children. I write." Perhaps this philosophy explains why some picture books maintain a certain appeal for those of us who have outgrown kid-lit. This appeal is not just nostalgia, as I learned when I was charmed by Simona Ciraolo's Hug Me, published last year.

In playful colored-pencil illustrations, Hug Me tells the story of Felipe, a small cactus who wants nothing more than a hug. Unfortunately, his cacti relations strongly discourage hugs, which don't mix well with their prickly dispositions. When an attempt at a hug turns disastrous, Felipe begins a search for love, friendship and the elusive embrace. The immediate aesthetic elements of this book win over adult readers: a smiling succulent, an art style that would work well on boutique stationery. But the central difficulties that Felipe faces -- not fitting in with one's tribe, resorting to loneliness -- are ones that many of us can relate to regardless of our age.

Though love wins in the end of Hug Me, the world this book portrays is rather hostile. Felipe runs away from his insensitive family after accidentally "injuring" an anthropomorphic (and terrifying) balloon. This has apparently alarmed some readers, who believe that children's books shouldn't portray such a depressing world. But worse things have happened in adorable children's classics -- Beatrix Potter's Squirrel Nutkin loses his tail after being nearly skinned alive by a tyrannical owl, and then there's that Maurice Sendak book in which goblins snatch a baby from her bed. Hug Me has an honest and optimistic message: while love may not be all around us, there is love in the world, and it's worth seeking.

Right now, the big news (albeit old news) is that a huge earthquake will strike the Pacific Northwest. It's just a matter of when -- we are currently living in the indefinite period of time before the quake. Coincidentally, I also just finished reading Haruki Murakami's After the Quake, a slender collection of short stories set after the devastating 1995 Kobe earthquake, which displaced over 300,000 people. One of the questions that this book asks is the same one that fuels my own anxieties: how do we live well in a world where very few things are certain?

In After the Quake, the earthquake functions as the stories' backdrop rather than their epicenter. What affects and unites the characters are personal, metaphysical upheavals: rifts in their ties to others that leave them feeling disconnected, rootless and empty. The first story, "UFO in Kushiro," begins when a woman who is fixated on the television coverage of the earthquake abruptly abandons her husband Komura. In her farewell letter, she writes: "living with you is like living with a chunk of air." Komura faces the emotional aftershocks of his wife's sudden departure when he travels to another city to deliver a mysterious package for a friend. In "Thailand," a disenchanted doctor on vacation secretly wishes that her ex-husband, now in Kobe, has died in the earthquake. Her faith in rationality and justice is incompatible with the wrongs the world has inflicted upon her. But our entire foundation is unstable, as her tour guide observes:

"Strange and mysterious things, though, aren't they--earthquakes? We take it for granted that the earth beneath our feet is solid and stationary. We even talk about people being 'down to earth' or having their feet firmly planted on the ground. But suddenly one day we see that isn't true."

The most surreal story in the collection is the penultimate "Super-Frog Saves Tokyo," which begins when a lonely bank officer named Katagiri returns home to discover a six-foot-tall, anthropomorphic frog in his kitchen. While making tea and quoting Nietzsche, Frog requests Katagiri's help in saving Tokyo from destruction. A giant worm lives underground, Frog explains, and Worm's pent-up hatred will cause another earthquake if it is not stopped. In "Super-Frog," our disbelief is stretched, suspended and snapped back into place until the boundary between dream and reality is difficult to ascertain. For instance, after Frog and Katagiri discuss corruption within the bank where Katagiri works, we (like Katagiri) have almost adjusted to the "new normal" of human-amphibian conversations when this happens:

"With a big smile on his face, Frog stood up. Then, flattening himself like a dried squid, he slipped out through the gap at the side of the closed door, leaving Katagiri all alone. The two teacups on the kitchen table were the only indication that Frog had ever been in Katagiri's apartment."

The ensuing events are comical, affecting, and disturbing. Katagiri finds meaning and purpose in his encounter with Frog, who insists upon his realness ("I am not a product of your imagination"), only to realize that the entire encounter may have been a dream. Through dreams, premonitions, and stories within stories, Murakami examines the role of the imagination in the search for identity and meaning. In one story, a dream is prescribed as the cure for a stony heart; in another, a nightmare expresses a painter's fear of being trapped. On his deathbed, one character tells another: "This life is nothing but a short, painful dream." The imagination terrifies, delights, heals, and fills the voids in the characters' lives, offering a counterpoint to reality that seems equally significant.

Fittingly, the final story "Honey Pie" opens with one imagination comforting another. Junpei, a hesitant, introverted writer, tells bedtime stories to his friend Sayoko's daughter, who has nightmares about a monster called the Earthquake Man. We soon learn that Sayoko has separated from Junpei's best friend, giving Junpei his long-awaited second chance to declare his decade-long love for Sayoko. In "Honey Pie," a broken relationship and years of biding time offer a possibility of rewriting one's role in the world. The last paragraph of the story (and the book) is stunning.

Though each story is self-contained and the last two are my favorite, I'd recommend reading them in order. The stories and their characters reveal prismatic reflections of one another; recurring motifs like bears, boxes, shadows and stones contribute to the stories' quiet cohesion. I also feel that as the stories progress, it is increasingly easier to occupy the same headspace as the characters. Komura's surge of emotion at the end of the first story takes us by surprise. In the final story, we follow Junpei's emotional compass as it points in an ever-clearer direction, despite the catastrophic uncertainty of the times.

Have you read After the Quake or anything by Murakami? Please share your thoughts and recommendations!

One of my goals this month is to learn calligraphy. Funnily enough, the era of instant communication has helped revive an art from a much slower one - I discovered calligraphy and lettering in all its modern forms via social media, and it immediately appealed to the handwriting obsession I've harbored since childhood.

My first attempt at using a dip pen was akin to that moment in Disney's Sleeping Beauty when the fairies sew a dress and bake a cake sans magic. That is, despite my lofty aspirations, I had no clue what I was doing and made a total mess. We typically think of handwriting as a means to an end; thinking of it as an art requires a shift in pace and mindset. If you're a beginner like me, it pays to be slow and methodical about the learning process and start with the ABCs on repeat.

Although I still have a lot to learn, I'll be posting snippets of my progress here and on Instagram. And to those of you with calligraphy experience, I'd love to see your work and hear your tips!

]]>For the Love of the Written WordBookmarksBookmarksEllieFri, 03 Jul 2015 15:25:16 +0000http://bookishtypes.com/blog/2015/7/3/bookmarks53611809e4b06295cb1675fb:53709448e4b0d8f74042fefc:55969d6ae4b02838d129070d

From my bookmarks folder to you: some recent favorite reads around the web. Have a good weekend, and to all my stateside friends, have a safe and happy fourth!

Although my digital footprint suggests that I vanished two months ago, I am in fact alive and well! I have been busy focusing on my career (i.e. averting existential crisis), and as a result, I will be starting a new job soon. After a period of feeling a bit stuck and indecisive, I'm excited to begin the next half of the year with a clearer sense of direction. I hope to do the same thing here in this space.

It is increasingly important for me to feel that I am pursuing work, play, etc. that I believe in wholeheartedly. In recent months, I'd been feeling halfhearted about social media, like I was adding to the noise without much sense of substance or purpose. So while concentrating on other priorities, I decided to take some virtual time off. I've tried to write a pithy account of "internet noise and what we should do about it," but the result sounds too sanctimonious. Though we do it often, and sometimes rightly, I'm very wary of deeming one person's contributions less "valuable" than another's. (After all, I've spent a good deal of time studying dead languages...) Suffice it to say that it pays to be intentional about how you spend your time and energy. Make sure you find worth and joy in what you do; tune into cognitive dissonance and reduce it whenever possible. During my virtual hiatus, I hopped off all the bandwagons and identified some aspects of blogging that I didn't miss at all, while also realizing I was itching to get back to this space, share my thoughts and connect with others.

Over the next few weeks, you may notice some reorienting of this blog's content and format, with the goal of developing greater focus. Thank you so much for your kind messages during my blogging hiatus, and for sticking around despite the silence!

If you ask the internet for general life advice, it might tell you to "live authentically." This mission has become a way to brand our lifestyles, a hashtag-worthy catchphrase like "You do you," "Keep it real," and "I woke up like this." Perhaps it's no coincidence that as we create virtual identities, we insist upon our authenticity. But what does it really mean to live authentically?

In the field of psychology, authenticity means living in accordance with one's values, beliefs, desires and needs. The opposite - being inauthentic - means self-alienation, being out of touch with oneself or submitting to external pressures. Research suggests that feeling authentic is key to our wellbeing, career success, interpersonal relationships and self-esteem. Brené Brown defines authenticity as living without pretences:

"Authenticity is a collection of choices we have to make every day. It’s about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen."

Be true to yourself. It seems simple enough, until we ask ourselves the age-old philosophical question, what is my true self? Rousseau believed that we achieve authenticity by following an inner source, a true self that functions as a predetermined and fixed touchstone. To an extent, the idea that our innate personalities should guide our paths in life resonates with Rousseau's idea of authenticity. According to Heidegger, authenticity is literally "being one's own" or "being one's self," a state we achieve by having a larger conception of our purpose or life-project. Rejecting the idea of a pregiven true self, Heidegger believed that our true self is a work in progress, unfolding in time as we project various possible choices into the future. Authenticity entails accountability: to live authentically, we must own and own up to our choices and actions. Sartre linked our authenticity to our ability to choose freely; "bad faith" means thinking that our identity is unchangeable. Foucault also dismissed the goal of uncovering one authentic "true self." Drawing upon askesis, an ancient Greek model of knowing and caring for the self, he insisted that we must create ourselves as works of art.

In short, you do you. This can be empowering advice, a call to free ourselves from social norms and external pressures. But this way of envisioning authenticity also seems self-indulgent. If I do me and you do you, and we focus our energy on self-fashioning, how much will we be invested in matters beyond ourselves? Is authenticity a selfish concept? Contemporary thinkers have tried to explain how the pursuit of authenticity may benefit society as a whole, and how our commitments may uphold a larger structure of values or morals. For instance, the philosopher Charles Taylor argues that our identity and authenticity depend on our relationships to others and the world around us:

"I can define my identity only against a background of things that matter. But to bracket out history, nature, society, the demands of solidarity, everything but what I find in myself, would be to eliminate all candidates for what matters. Only if I exist in the world in which history, or the demands of nature, or the needs of my fellow human beings, or the duties of citizenship, or the call of God, or something else of this order matters crucially, can I define an identity for myself that is not trivial. Authenticity is not the enemy of demands that emanate from beyond the self; it supposes such demands."

According to Taylor, if being authentic means doing "what matters," authenticity requires us to understand our roles, responsibilities and values within an overarching social and environmental order. Our authenticity hinges upon how we exist as participants in the world - how our choices affect ourselves and, dialogically, others.

Is authenticity a useful goal? It is fair to deem one lifestyle more authentic than another? I can't say that living authentically has ever been an explicit aspiration of mine. At the same time, living inauthentically sounds like a betrayal of something important, so maybe these questions are worth asking.

Happy March! I spent the last day of February writing greetings for a certain holiday that occurred two weeks ago. Better late than never, right? The cards in the photo are by the lovely and talented Laura Uy. I discovered Laura through social media and finally made a purchase from her Etsy shop Art + Soul: the two cards above, plus this one for my Valentine. Laura's cards feature adorable illustrations and witty puns; there are even Lord of the Rings cards for your loved ones, featuring Gollum ("You are my precious") and Gimli ("Gimli all your love"), among other characters. To see more of Laura's art, follow her on Instagram @artandsoulcreativeco.

If you love Rome and Italian food, you will enjoy the blog Parla Food. Katie shares her knowledge of Roman history, food, and culture through well-researched posts and videos. I'm eagerly awaiting the release of her book Really Roman and wishing in the meantime that I could teleport to Rome for a steaming bowl of Cacio e Pepe. (And che coincidenza, I heard Katie Parla on NPR this morning!) While we're on the subject of food blogs, in case you haven't already, you should go get inspired by the beautiful photography of Local Milk and Artful Desperado.

In February I started doing the ballet-inspired workout Ballet Beautiful, which I refer to as the "Black Swan workout" because Mary Helen Bowers was Natalie Portman's trainer for the film. I danced on and off for years, and although I consider myself to be in fairly good shape, this gets my muscles burning.

Renee Engeln's TED Talk on "beauty sickness" resonated with me. She's a good speaker, and what she has to say is so important.

And for posterity's sake, I have to include the social media controversy you've all seen by now: is it blue and black or white and gold? I saw white and gold at first glance; then I looked away, looked back, and saw blue and black, unmistakably. I don't even understand how I saw white and gold before. What do you see?

From time to time, I sneak-read self-help books. This genre is full of promises to transform us: prescriptions for success based on personality types, "scientifically substantiated" manifestos on what to eat, ten ways to unlock an intangible force within you. At heart, I share a fundamental belief with this multibillion dollar industry: books can change us. But the ones that claim explicitly to do so are often sanctimonious, formulaic, and questionable. If you, like me, feel like this about the genre of self-help, you might be familiar with sneak-reading, and probably its cousin snark-reading.

This past week, I sneak-read (snuck-read?) Cheryl Strayed's Tiny Beautiful Things, a compilation of letters that Strayed wrote for her online advice column "Dear Sugar." It's the perfect book to fill brief gaps in a busy schedule - a letter here, a letter there, just one more before bedtime. The letters are from men and women, young and old, writing about deeply personal insecurities, uncertainties: loss and love in many permutations. Although an advice column is a form of self-help, the epistolary form guards against the sort of generalizations endemic to this genre. Strayed a.k.a Sugar gives anecdotal advice, tailored to a particular reader's problems and striking different chords in different people amongst her wider readership. The letters often deal with overcoming crisis, a subject that also motivates her acclaimed memoir Wild (currently in my to-read pile). Despite using terms of endearment like "darling" and "honey bun," Sugar sugarcoats sparingly, unreserved in pointing out our arrogance, flawed logic, or misguided priorities. Vulnerabilities are laid bare, and humility is one of the most powerful forces to emerge from them. In one of the early letters, Strayed quotes Flannery O'Connor's observation that "The first product of self-knowledge is humility." From her letters, it seems that the first product of humility is empathy.

Sneak-reading is a product of pride. We don't want to be associated with self-help, a genre that so often peddles literary snake oil. We don't want to need "advice on love and life" because that makes us sound like we're broken and need fixing. But Strayed's goal isn't to fix anything: she comforts, confesses, reasons, accepts, and encourages us all to do the same. The letters to Sugar represent a breadth of hardships, most of which I have not experienced, but Strayed's responses often create a lump in my throat, that feeling of making someone else's emotions my own.

About halfway through Tiny Beautiful Things, my sneak-reading gave way to rather public proclamations of love for this book. I plan to give it to friends with a big fat inscription inside that says "READ THIS please." I'd give one to all of you if I could.

This winter I'm re-learning how to knit. It's a very forgiving hobby, even if you're a beginner like me. It's also a hobby for giving, for making something with someone else in mind. (Note to self: start before the holidays next time.) Stitches are steady, repetitive, metronomic, maybe even meditative. There's something reassuring in the quiet tick, tick of two wooden needles crossing. And if you mess up, just unravel and start again.

The project I'm working on right now is a striped baby blanket based on this pattern, which requires minimal knitting knowledge - casting on, garter stitch, changing colors, casting off. To refresh my memory on the basics, I've watched YouTube tutorials galore. YouTube the aforementioned steps and you'll be on your way. I also recommend the book Stitch n' Bitch as an extra (hilarious) reference, complete with projects like "Wonder Woman Bikini" and headings like "Oops, I Knit It Again." This book was my first knitting companion and saw my teenage self through several gaudy, half-finished scarves.

Why knit a garment when you can buy one for less time and money? Besides the therapeutic and sentimental reasons, it's a good pace-changing exercise in a world of fast, disposable fashion. The whole process makes me more attuned to where the materials are coming from and how long it takes to create knitwear by hand. I value the finished product more because I put my own time and effort into it. Also, knitting has helped me break my terrible habit of double-screen multitasking (you know, doing stuff on your laptop while watching Netflix on your TV...); because this project is so uncomplicated, I can do it as a side task without feeling like my attention is divided.

PS: I hope you can read my handwriting. I almost rewrote it and then I thought, no, let's keep things honest here. Though I've always wished for more graceful penmanship, this is what it looks like most of the time!